The One Relationship That Shapes Everything Else | SFTS Ep13

Most of us spend our lives trying to fix relationships with other people, without ever looking at the one that shapes them all, the relationship with ourselves. In this reflection, I explore how Self-abandonment, self-criticism, and ignoring our needs quietly ripple into every area of life. This episode is an invitation to turn inward, rebuild trust, and come home to your Self.

Transcript

There's one relationship in your life that determines the quality of all and every other relationships.

It's not your relationship with your partner,

It's not your relationship with your parents,

It's not relationship with your friends.

It's the one that often is ignored the most.

Because the relationship that determines everything else is the relationship you have with yourself.

With self,

With a capital S.

And if that relationship is broken or non-existent,

Everything else will be too.

Just think about your relationships for a moment,

The ones that feel hard,

The ones where you feel misunderstood,

The ones where you're constantly trying to prove your worth.

Now let me ask you something,

How do you treat yourself when you make a mistake?

Do you speak to yourself with kindness?

Or do you berate yourself,

Attack yourself?

Slap yourself on the head?

How do you treat yourself when you're struggling?

Do you give yourself permission to rest?

Or do you tell yourself you have to push through and override what you need,

What your body desires,

Has to have?

How do you treat yourself when you're hurting?

Do you turn towards and look at the pain?

Or do you abandon yourself and look for someone else to fix it or something else to cope or distract?

Because here's what I've learned.

The way you relate to you,

The way you relate to self is the way you'll relate to everyone else.

And the way you allow others to relate to you.

Your relationships are mirrors.

They reflect back to you the relationship you have with self.

If you abandon yourself when things get hard,

If you override your needs,

Ignore your feelings,

Push through your exhaustion,

You'll attract people who do the same to you.

Or you'll stay in relationships where you have to abandon yourself to keep the peace.

If you criticize yourself constantly,

If there's a voice inside you that tells you that you're not enough,

You're too much,

You're doing wrong,

You'll attract people who criticize you.

Who you'll be so afraid of their criticism that you'll shrink yourself to avoid it.

If you don't trust yourself,

If you second-guess every decision,

And if you look outside,

External to yourself for validation,

For confirmation,

For approval,

If you need someone else to tell you that you're okay,

You'll attract people who don't trust you either.

Or you'll give your power away to them because you don't believe you have the answers inside.

See the pattern?

The outer reflects the inner.

And your relationships with others are a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself.

And if that relationship is broken,

If you're at war with yourself,

If you're abandoning yourself,

If you treat yourself like you're not enough,

All your relationships will reflect that.

Why do we ignore this relationship?

Why do we spend so much time trying to fix our relationships with other people?

But we never turn inward and ask,

How am I relating to myself?

Because it's easier to blame them.

It's easier to say if,

If they would change,

If they would just see me,

If they would just give me what I need.

But here's the truth.

They can't give you what you won't give yourself.

They can't just change unless you change.

They can't see you unless you see you.

And they can't give you what you need unless you give yourself that.

If you don't value yourself,

They won't value you.

And if you don't stay with yourself when things get hard,

Get deeper,

Understand,

Be curious,

They won't either.

Not because they're bad people,

But because you're teaching them how to treat you inadvertently.

And you're teaching them by how you treat yourself.

And when you abandon yourself,

You teach them it's okay to abandon you.

When you criticize yourself,

You teach them it's okay to criticize you.

When you override your needs,

You teach them your needs don't matter.

This is the cost of ignoring the relationship with yourself.

It doesn't just hurt you,

It shapes every relationship you have.

And to circle back to that comment about abandonment,

I have a talk about the first abandonment.

And it links to this,

That first abandonment that we have,

That fear that often exists in people,

Fear of being abandoned,

Fear of rejection.

And from what I've seen,

From what I've learned,

Felt,

Dealt,

Is that often,

That fear isn't really about someone else abandoning,

Someone else rejecting.

The fear harks back,

It harks back to a time when you first abandoned yourself,

When you first rejected yourself,

When you first decided to put someone or something else before you.

And as I said,

That ignoring and doing that doesn't only hurt you,

It shapes everything around you.

Here's the great news that I can personally attest to,

When you change the relationship with self,

When you learn to stay and to sit with self,

To listen to self,

To treat self with the kindness you've been giving everyone else,

To be curious,

And to want to understand and to get deeper,

Everything changes.

Your relationships don't just improve,

They transform,

They transform.

And again,

I want to be clear that this isn't about changing out relationships,

They can transform,

Or at the very least,

You can see clearly the relationship.

Because when you stop abandoning yourself,

You stop tolerating people who abandon you,

When you stop criticizing yourself,

You stop accepting criticism that isn't constructive.

And when you start trusting yourself,

You stop giving your power away to people who don't have your best interest at heart.

And the people who can't meet you there,

They fall away,

Not because you push them away,

But because you're no longer a vibrational match for that dynamic,

For what they were getting from you.

And the people who can meet you there,

They start to show up differently,

They start to see themselves differently,

They start to become curious as to why do I do this,

They start to look and to seek and to understand.

And with you showing up differently,

They show up differently because you're showing up differently to them.

So,

The turnaround,

How do we repair this relationship?

How do you rebuild trust with yourself after years and years of abandonment?

And the first thing that I want to say is that it is totally and utterly doable.

It's a journey,

A journey that won't take hours,

Weeks,

Days,

Months,

It'll take years.

My journey in earnest started in 2020.

So,

Whenever you're listening to this,

Do the maths.

And all I can say before I give you the four things that I've seen and learnt is that it does happen,

You do get there.

And the thing is that it's not fixing,

It's not to say that in X time you won't feel overwhelmed,

You won't feel not seen,

You won't feel insecure.

And what it means is that you'll look to self to get you through that.

And to another talk that I've given,

Tomorrow is always another day,

Always a new day.

So,

Let's get back.

How do you rebuild that trust with yourself?

There's four things.

First,

Notice how you speak to yourself.

Start to pay attention,

Start to listen,

To observe.

How do you speak to yourself?

Because a lot of us have a voice inside that's relentless,

Always there,

It criticizes,

It judges,

Tells you you're not doing enough,

You're not enough,

You're failing.

And you think and at times believe that voice is you.

But it's not.

It's a part of you that's trying,

Trying to protect you by making sure you never mess up,

You never disappoint,

You never give anyone a reason to run away,

To reject you.

So,

The first step is just to notice it.

Notice when it's speaking,

Notice what it says,

Notice how it makes you feel.

Ask yourself,

Would I speak to someone I love this way?

To my best friend,

Would I speak to my best friend this way?

Would I speak to a child this way?

And if the answer is no,

Then ask yourself,

Why are you speaking to yourself this way?

And I'd like you to note down when you speak to yourself harshly.

What are the conditions?

What are you feeling?

What are you thinking?

Just start to pay more attention.

The second thing,

And this perhaps is the most important.

Stay.

Stay with yourself when it gets hard.

Because right here,

Right there,

When it does get hard,

When it gets uncomfortable,

This is where most abandon themselves.

Something uncomfortable happens,

We feel anxious,

Scared,

Ashamed and we leave.

We distract ourselves,

We initiate one of our coping mechanisms.

We numb ourselves with drink,

Drugs,

Sex.

We look external for someone or something else to fix.

It can even be destructive.

Some call it the firefighter.

When that happens,

We go into this place and space of self-destruction.

Sound familiar?

But what if,

And it's hard,

Don't get me wrong,

It's hard.

It's very hard.

But what if instead of leaving,

You stayed?

And staying takes practice.

Staying takes being conscious,

Being aware.

Staying takes love.

Love of self.

And what if instead of running,

You turned toward the discomfort and said,

I'm here,

I'm not leaving,

You're safe with me.

And if you're a meditator,

Meditate.

If you're a walker,

Walk.

And just be with yourself and listen.

And here's what I would do.

How I'd rebuild and how I rebuild that trust with self.

I would take myself out for a walk.

And initially it was every time,

It was a specific time,

Every day.

I'd walk out the gate,

I'd turn on my phone,

Have my headphones on or speak into my phone,

Turn on my voice note and record a voice note.

And I'd prompt it by asking the question,

And I still do,

How do I feel right now?

And then I'd just talk.

And you don't have to listen back to what you said.

But just getting into the act of speaking out.

And this is the important part.

Listening.

Listening to what you're saying.

Because in listening to what you're saying,

Two things are happening.

You are learning to listen to what and how you speak to yourself,

Point one,

Point two.

And you're learning to build that trust.

You're learning that in that ritual of every day going out for a walk and expressing and listening to how you're feeling and talking that out,

Talking that through.

And you talk like you'd be talking to a best friend,

A sibling.

And pick them up and say,

Hey,

Do you have time for a coffee?

Hey,

Can we go for a walk?

That's the space and feeling and that's the openness of your heart that you're leaving that voice note in.

And that knowing,

And at the start,

It's deliberate.

It gives your brain peace and solace.

It stops it from having to constantly talk and speak every day,

All day.

And you find that your mind starts to quiet because it knows that every day I get an opportunity to speak and to be heard.

I found that to be an absolute game changer.

It's how I started to rebuild trust with myself.

And it's not about fixing discomfort,

But it's about being willing to be with it.

By showing yourself over and over again,

That you won't abandon yourself when things get hard.

That you,

Emphasis on you,

Will be the one that you turn to.

It's the emphasis on the fact that you are the one that you will listen to.

And that you are the one that is going to hear you.

The third thing.

Listen to what you need.

Not what you think you should need.

Not what someone on social media says you need.

Not what everyone else needs from you.

But what do you,

You,

You,

What do you need?

And here's the thing.

Most of us don't even know because we've spent so long overriding our needs.

Ignoring them,

Ignoring the signals,

Not trusting our intuition.

Pushing through pain,

Through exhaustion,

That we've lost touch with what we actually need.

So start small.

Check in throughout the day.

Ask yourself,

What do I need right now?

And then,

This is the important one.

Give it to yourself.

Not later,

Not when you deem that you've earned it.

Not when everything else is done.

But right then.

Whatever the answer is to what do I need right now,

Give it to yourself.

If it's to sit down,

Then sit down.

If it's to go for a walk,

Then go for a walk.

If it's to be silent,

Then be silent.

Because this is how you learn to trust yourself.

Like all relationships,

It takes persistence,

It takes patience,

It takes practice.

And by honoring what you need,

By proving to yourself that your needs matter,

This is how you rebuild that relationship.

And the fourth thing,

And I have a whole engagement about this,

Become your own best friend.

Think about how you show up for people you love.

When they're struggling,

How you're there.

When they're scared,

How you hold space.

When they make a mistake,

How you don't abandon them.

How you remind them that they're human.

Now,

What if you showed up for yourself that way?

What if you were as kind to yourself as you are to them?

What if you're as patient with yourself as you are with them,

If you stayed with yourself the way you stay with them?

I call this self-friendship.

It's not about perfection.

It's not about never struggling.

It's about being the one who doesn't leave.

The one who doesn't run,

Doesn't reject,

Doesn't abandon.

I've been the one who stays,

Who listens,

Who says,

I've got you.

Together,

We will get through this.

That is what it's all about.

And this is the relationship that changes everything.

And here's what I want you to know.

The relationship with self is the foundation for everything.

When that relationship is strong,

When you trust yourself,

When you stay with self,

When you treat self with kindness,

Everything else shifts.

Your relationships become healthier,

Your boundaries become clearer,

Your capacity to love and be loved expands.

Not because you found the right person,

Not because they finally changed,

But because you changed.

You changed.

You stopped abandoning yourself.

You stopped looking outside for what you could only find inside.

You came home.

And when you come home to yourself,

When you come home to self,

When you rebuild this relationship,

You realize you were never alone.

We always had you.

And that is the relationship that determines everything else.

So if you're listening to this right now and your relationships feel hard,

If you feel unseen,

Unheard,

Undervalued,

I want you to ask yourself,

How am I treating myself?

Am I seeing myself?

Am I hearing myself?

Am I valuing myself?

Because the relationship you're looking for out there starts in here,

Internally with you.

And when you repair this relationship,

When you become your own best friend,

Everything changes.

And that's the work.

And I'm here walking it with you.

Now,

If this conversation landed for you,

If you realize that maybe the relationship you need to work on most is the one with yourself,

I want to invite you to consider taking my course,

Transforming Your Triggers,

Or to listen to another talk,

Another episode,

Why You Abandon Yourself When Life Gets Hard,

And How to Stay.

And if you're listening to this in consecutive order,

That's the next episode.

Because what we talked about today,

Rebuilding the relationship with yourself,

That starts with learning how to stay with yourself when things get uncomfortable.

So,

If you want to go deeper,

If you want to understand exactly how to stop abandoning yourself and start staying,

Take my course,

Transforming Your Triggers.

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I put out an episode as often as we can,

Honest,

Grounded conversations about coming home to self and speaking to people,

To real people,

About their stories from their soul.

Thank you for being here,

And I'll see you in the next one.